and i'll laugh about all that we've lost
by unleashed-demons
Summary: Looking through the window, Johanna is standing at the train stop. As soon as I step out, I study her for a moment. There are holes in her clothes, her body looks so damn thin and I'd swear the Hunger Games were still on if the Revolution weren't over. / JONISS


_I dreamed I was dying; as I so often do And when I awoke I was sure it was true I ran to the window; threw my head to the sky And said whoever is up there, please don't let me die But I can't live forever, I can't always be One day I'll be sand on a beach by a sea The pages keep turning, I'll mark off each day with a cross And I'll laugh about all that we've lost_

 _"Calender Girl" - Stars_

* * *

Sometimes I see Rue in my sleep, dancing behind my closed eyelids. Prim joins her. She's in the meadow by my house, the both of them, the mockingjays singing above their heads.

I am in the kitchen of my house. The pot is boiling on the stove. Peeta is nowhere to be found. I hear its lid clanging and approach it slowly, lifting the lid. I gasp as I remove the top that's filled with black bile. I inch closer, peering into the pot and the jabberjays squawk loudly at me, fluttering in my face. Opening my mouth, I try to scream out for Prim and Rue but nothing comes out. The genuine terror in my chest is so heavy I can't form words. I tear my eyes out the window as parachutes begin floating in the sky. I am frozen in place and I cannot reach out for them. I hear bombs explode. My heart stops. The jabberjays have replaced the mockingjays. One of them grabs me with its claws and I am pulled into the pot, into the bile.

I wake up screaming and the whole world spins.

 _Thunk._

The train jerks me in the process and I ignore the angry glances, knowing I am a crazy person. Reality hits me like a ton of bricks. None of it was real. Rue and Prim weren't real. I am becoming too familiar with the nightmares.

Glancing sidelong to the left, the broken man sits across from me. Snow. I don't ask where he's going because I must still be dreaming. Or seeing things. Maybe I haven't woken up. But he doesn't acknowledge my existence because the Games are over and we're all supposed to forget, even though the Games destroyed whatever sense of self-value I had left.

But then I blink a few times and his presence stops obscuring my vision, replaced by his granddaughter who has stopped wearing the braid in her hair because the mockingjay has been destroyed.

The mockingjay died a long time ago. I was never truly the symbol of the rebellion, just a thinly disguised one for destruction.

I am only Katniss Everdeen now – selfish, unmotivated and cowardly.

Without me volunteering and winning, what did people see in me?

 _Because I was a murderer, not a hero._

And I can't get past what I was. I look down at my hands, as if it's all their fault, because of the things they've done. Acts of violence, acts of rebellion. My hands are the essence of me, moreso than any other part. Every cruel thing they've done has been caused because of the Games. I should've gone into the mist instead of Mags because all I do is hurt.

But right now Johanna needs me.

She went on the train to District 12 one day. I asked her why she came. She just told me, "There's no one there left that I love."

Similar words she said in the arena. So I promised I'd visit her again, even though she can be angry and self-destructive and purposefully push my buttons. She was my ally, though I'm not sure what we are now. I remember when the Cornucopia started spinning fast, how she reached for my hand to save me from the unstable ground.

As the train eventually wheezes to District 7, my own memory train stops in its tracks when the doors are opened. Looking through the window, Johanna is standing at the train stop. As soon as I step out, I study her for a moment. There are holes in her clothes, her body looks so damn thin and I'd swear the Hunger Games were still on if the Revolution weren't over. But the arena had already messed us up, it's just now that the outside is much more apparent.

"Hey, brainless," she says, smiling wide so I can see her teeth. "You didn't bring lovebird with you?"

I notice a glint of something in her eyes as if there's envy or jealous, albeit it's quick to flame and bursts away. The Games ate at her, just like me. Peeta's just better at patching the leak that sprang us all apart, but I have no idea of his happiness or how he can still smile and laugh and love. So I consider asking Johanna. When was the last time you ate, how's the PTSD holding up, how many axes have you thrown in the last week – but only because there's a certain rawness to her I don't understand.

And I should say something. But I don't say anything at all. I am completely out of touch until Johanna waves her hand dismissively in my face.

"Yo, brainless."

I just get so lost in my head sometimes, because when I'm in my head I'm not in Panem anymore, just long gone in the clouds. I shake myself mentally and look at Johanna. The two of us stand there, unsure what to do next.

So I just shake my head and utter, "How have you been?"

Lame.

But it's a start, because to call Johanna my friend wouldn't be accurate. Aren't friendships built on similarities? What do Johanna and I have in common? I frown internally, because I've never been good at friendship. It's foreign to me. In all honesty, I'm nothing more than a girl with social problems and issues with making friends who became a symbol for Panem by killing people (which is one thing Johanna and I have in common, but so does everyone else who were in the Games.) I've hurt more than healed, pushed people away because I was afraid of getting too close, but I'm not going to do that to Johanna.

"Living the dream of the New Panem. Working in the lumber yards. Set my tree costume on fire, so that's a success." She says drily. A humorless, dry puff of laughter escapes her. "You look well, Katniss. Me? Well, I didn't think I'd be the one knocked up."

A cold wind bites my cheek and I shove my hands deep into my pockets. She never fails to blame me for all the ways I have it so much better, but there's nothing left because I've already served my purpose. She has nothing to be jealous of when I am stuck in the hazy place between sleep and the real world. I have pushed Gale away and I don't know why Peeta stays with me, catering me at night as I shake violently under the blankets. So there must be something good in me. Or is it something good in my act?

Johanna looks at me. I look at her and I can see the girl she pretended to be during her first Games now becoming real. I wish I had known her then, before the Games made her tough. I feel so helpless. I try to think, what would Prim do? She was good at things like this.

So I ask, "Are you okay?"

She says, "No. I'm so fucking lonely, Katniss."

I say, "I know."

Not because I know what it's like to be her. Not because I can imagine what she's going through. I just know it hurts because she's showing me, that she's hurting just like the rest of us. She's showing me what she looks like through all the constructed walls she built around her.

"Stay with me tonight. Please," she whispers, eyes rimmed red. "I have no one."

Her voice is desperate and it's so weird seeing her like this because I've never seen Johanna this unraveled before. But I nod anyway, because I do know what it's like to take walks alone, though I feel foolish for grieving. I have Peeta. It's different. And I want Johanna to know she isn't alone. I reach for her hand as my fingers brush over hers. She doesn't hold back or jerk away and I give it a warm squeeze.

"You have me," I assure her as best I can, though she still doesn't understand why I'm sacrificing my free time for her. "I'll stay with you, okay? Peeta will be fine. He has that damn cat, anyway."

Johanna's lip pushes upward. To call it a smile would be misleading at best. It's weak and dies off almost immediately, like it pains her to show any emotion at all but I remember it. It takes her a moment to respond, but her hand finally presses tightly against mine, her fingers icy against my skin.

"C'mon. Let's get out of this winter shit."

Nodding my head, I follow at her side without saying anything, the distinct smell of lumber arousing as we pass the lumber yards. I remember the first time I met Johanna, the death glare I received and how she stripped down naked out of her tree costume in the elevator from the Tribute Parade. She never censors herself and I am somehow grateful for that, because it was captivating at the Victory Tour, how my thoughts were robbed by simple index cards like I was just a toy pulled out for show. And a broken one now. Should've left my skeletons in the closet where they belonged.

Johanna abruptly stops and turns toward the lumber yards. I glance at her, and her face is serious as her eyebrows furrow, like out there it's sad that the trees are dead.

"Ah, lumber." She exhales hard through her nose, her hands folding over her stomach. "Good times, good times."

After a few moments of intense staring, she whirls back around and then her arm hooks around my elbow, tugging me forward. We arrive at a cabin, smelling like dust, the sky taunting us of dreams and smoke and lies. As the sky starts to swell with darkness, we make our way inside. She shuts the door behind her, the cabin hollow. Following behind her, she leads me into the living room area, the windows all dark and empty. Maybe if the sun came in she wouldn't be so lonely. Looking more closely, there's a fireplace even though I don't see the chimney outside. I stand there awkwardly, Johanna standing in the center of the living room.

There's silence for a time. Although what she says aloud aren't ever all that kind, this silence is different, like she's dwelling in it. It's filled with things we're not sure what to say, so I try to remedy it before it stretches for too long.

My gray eyes meet hers carefully. "I've missed you, you know."

She grins, suddenly amused. "Missed how I was a complete bitch to you or me stripping down in the elevator?"

Rolling my eyes, I nudge her shoulder with mine. "As a person, Johanna. Is it that bizarre to believe I actually enjoy your company?"

I mean it. She's so mysterious and enigmatic and witty and sultry. It fazes me because she's unlike anyone I've ever met, and not completely in a good way, but maybe I'm just fascinated with her the way people are with car accidents.

Explosions. You know they'll burn you, but you can't help to not look away.

And though she can change sporadically from a firecracker to a blizzard, when we were bunking together in District 13 she was the only one who didn't treat me like damaged goods while everyone else saw me as some fragile thing they didn't want to break. Johanna didn't hold me apart.

She makes a face at me. "Fine. Missed you too, brainless."

I mirror her back. And then she presses her face into her palm, running a distressful hand down.

"God, I need a drink," she says softly.

Spinning on her heel, she marches straight to the kitchen. I watch her closely as she ducks into the fridge and rips off the cork of the first bottle she grabs. She lets the cork fall to the floor before guzzling down two large swallows. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and presses it on the closed refrigerator door, squeezing the neck of the bottle so hard her knuckles pale.

I approach her silently, because I am reminded of Haymitch, how he drinks himself into oblivion to forget. Johanna tilts her head back and takes another swig. Our eyes meet, and I wish she'd let that fire in her die, but it's been flaming for a while now. I don't know what it's like to have everything you've ever loved destroyed. Not completely.

"Johanna."

I demand her attention now, my face remaining calm.

She just blinks at me. "What? I'm entitled to get wasted, Katniss. After all this bullshit at least the universe is generous enough to spare me a goddamn drink."

But she doesn't get very far. I hear her moan an 'Oh god,' to herself as she drops the wine. Neither of us look at it as she saunters over to the couch. Throwing herself down, she collapses and shoves her face beneath a pillow. I don't know what else to do, so I move over toward her, sitting next to her heavily. I rub her back slowly, brown hair shielding her face. I tuck her hair securely behind her ear. This is the first time I've seen her cry and I wonder who was the last person she allowed to look so vulnerable around. I guess Snow was the only one up until now. He's crippled her, stabbed a knife into her back.

She looks up at me, her eyes dulled and shadowed. "Sorry for being a psycho bitch."

My heart is a swollen lump in my throat as I look at her, wiping my thumb beneath her sad eyes. A tentative hand reaches for her shoulder. She's wary, on edge, and there's something so devastating about her, different from Gale and Peeta. I can't help but think back to Gale, helpless and wounded from the whipping on my mother's table or when Peeta was bleeding in the cave. Now Johanna's the wounded bird, her eyes flicked back down.

She's hurt. She's betrayed. She's broken.

But I don't know how to react, so I just take hold of her face, our eyes meeting again. And without another thought, I push forward and press my lips softly to hers. I am awful with talking – I am awful with words but I think maybe I can get something out of her, hoping the kiss can say more than I can. At first her lips are soft and I didn't think she could have a gentler kiss than Peeta. And technically, she's not even kissing me back, if the tiny murmur between our lips is any indication before I pull away.

"I'm sorry," I blurt out, my expression faltering between concern and embarrassment. I look at her, dread steeling over me. "Are you going to rip my throat out now?"

She's definitely going to hit me now. But Johanna doesn't move and I'm not sure what it is, because even she seems unprepared for the situation, but there's no real malice evident on her face. She doesn't even punch me, but maybe it's because she's too broken and shattered.

"No." She shakes her head before pressing a hand to her mouth, resting it atop her lap. "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to strip down and let myself go; all of me. As if we're just starting over. We'll learn about each other again as if we've begun anew - like the Games never existed. How's that proposal?"

Confused, I give a slow, reluctant nod. As she stands up, she smiles weakly and turns away from me, slowly letting her hands trace the outline of her shirt. I don't have much time to sit on the sudden realization that Johanna is taking her shirt off and then she's shedding out of the rest of her clothes and -

She's naked.

My face has drained of color and turned red all in the span of ten seconds.

And I've seen her naked before, so this view isn't exactly new, but it's different because it's private. It's for me.

Johanna clenches her hands, whirling around to face me with wide, dark eyes. There are scars on her arms, near her breasts, her stomach. All from the Revolution, maybe some from herself. She doesn't say, but I had missed the thick layer of vulnerability smeared in between her skin and bones.

"Look, Katniss. I never hated you." She says candidly, a wistful smile on her face. "That was my alter ego talking. Most people don't realize this but… the reason I act so shallow and vain… It's truly not because I feel that way at all. I don't. I feel… ugly. Hideous. But I put on a show. The Johanna you see - the Johanna you've been seeing for so long. That's not really me. I've… I've been putting up the facade to deal with the pain and haunting memories. It's foolish but it's how I cope."

I stand, because I want to fix her if she'll let me. Or, at the very least, I can try. And I want to try.

"Hey." I whisper, grasping her bare shoulder. "Need I remind you of your strength? Your bravery? Your courage?"

"Are you my therapist now?"

"If I have to be." I say softly, full of meaning. "You've gotta tell me everything, Johanna."

She nods slowly. She pulls on a coat that was pooled on the floor. She hugs the coat around herself as she sits down heavily, hands clasped in her lap. I join her. I reach over, taking her hand and entwining my finger with hers.

"Okay." She takes a breath and lets it out, my hair pattering with her broken exhale. "I'll tell you. Don't know whether you're brave or brainless."

I'd never really wanted to know much about her life until now, which makes me feel angry at myself because I had caught a glimpse of who she was during the Games, and I did nothing. I tried so hard to gloss over it.

 _"They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left that I love."_

"It was the 71st Hunger Games I was reaped into. I was sixteen," she begins, shaking her head into my neck. "I… I didn't mean for it to happen. I was young and stupid. I wanted to win. My family was devastated, but seeing I was as good as dead, there was nothing they could do. I was confident but I needed a plan. When I got out alive because I pretend to be weak…" Her voice shakes, arms quiver and she tightens a grip on me. "No one knows the whole story. Remember how the Capitol saved the Mockingjay, how it was their plan all along to get you out of there?"

I nod mutely. I am a better listener than talker anyway. I knew Johanna had won from Haymitch telling us but hearing it from the victor makes it more real. I'd swear she looks like she's reliving it because I can almost see the dark clouds floating through her eyes.

"Well the only thing I thought I was good at was throwing axes and sexual appeal." Her eyes roll, but they quickly find mine again. "That's all I was ever praised for. In doing so, I thought maybe there'd be a way to get out alive. So he took me into his office one day. Before the Games. I seduced Snow."

My eyes snap wide, like a shock. I give a jerk as if I've been electrocuted.

"Why—?" is as far as I can manage.

My jaw barely moves because it's so tightly locked.

Her shoulders shift. "He kept a tracker on me, you know, so I could get out alive. He kept it on low key, to make sure I was away from danger. But nobody kills the weak girl first, because why do that when you can save her for last?"

My expression shifts from soft to shocked and back to neutral again in the matter of seconds. Johanna's eyes flicker back and forth like a snake, waiting to pounce. I know I hit a trigger point and I feel guilty for doing such a thing but she seems to take it better than I would.

"There were only six of us left. I was a capitol favorite, like you." She emphasizes. "Eventually it was just me and a boy from District 2. I tore his throat out." She says drily, because there is no venom in it. "Not that I was proud, but I had to survive. The canon went off and I was crowned the winner. Everybody loved me. I went back home and got to live the rest of my life in peace, like Snow had promised, but he visited my house one day."

I shudder, because Snow had tarnished so many lives and shattered so many souls. I can see the hurt in her. I want her to stop, but I also need to know.

Johanna presses her hand to her face and tries to take a breath. "He said he missed me, that the Capitol had adored me but he wanted to adore me for himself. He had an offer for me. He said he'd give me money if I slept with him, to pay for my family. It was a secret, that if I told anyone he'd kill my family. I told him I only fucked him the first time because I wanted to win the Games. He called me a stupid bitch, that I was a slut and he hit me. He said he'd make me pay." I move my hand onto her knee tentatively, and she looks down at it, a tortured look on her face. "I went through the Victory Tour just as you and Peeta. Told my family I loved them before I left for a week. When I came back home, he had killed them. He set my family's backyard on fire. He made sure every last one of them died. The trees had been knocked down, dead and gone. The house was in disarray. He left a note without it signed. I made you pay for it."

A flashback from the arena floods in my mind.

 _"Hey, how does that sound Snow? What if we, what if we set your backyard on fire?"_

The edge of my brain throbs as I watch her, crumbling right in front of me. If I'd known, I could've done something, but she was too good for the Games. Maybe she kept it locked up so long because she'd thought it'd atrophy. But the flames never burned out. They just rose higher. She's like the tail of the Cornucopia. Each wedge has different layers. She's stable at first, but now I've found the wires and they're springing her apart. _Hickory Dickory Dock._

"And Coin did kill your sister, yes, but Snow lied to me. He ruined me. That's why I wanted you to execute him." Johanna gives a hard, rough laugh that has nothing to do with humor. "So you see, brainless. Snow didn't die from an illness. I threw an axe on his face."

I'm shaking. I'm almost crying. My father is dead. My sister is dead. Thousands of people are dead that shouldn't be because of me and I didn't kill the one person that should be. So I wonder, the thought that lingers in my head, if any good I do could possibly outweigh the damage. And being here with Johanna makes me realize that maybe I won't ever be okay again.

Because the other me is so far gone. So dormant. I can't wake her up again. She died in the arena and didn't come out. Not whole, at least. But maybe I came to Johanna because she understands that. She knows what it's like to lose her family and feel like it's her fault.

"I'm sorry," I say, trying to swallow the lump in my throat but my voice comes out shaky anyway. "Sorry I couldn't kill Snow for you. I just - I shot Coin because Snow was telling me she was the enemy. I was selfish. But Snow's going to burn in Hell, okay? For all that he's done to Panem. To you. To me."

Johanna knows I'm sorry, but it doesn't change anything because you can't change the past, can't fix years worth of damage and I didn't kill Snow when I promised I would. I never follow the rules. It's one of my flaws. I can never listen to people. I always go with my own gut and intuition. And I hate myself for it.

She trembles. She just blinks at me, her mouth empty of words. I stare at her, tears trailing down my cheeks to leap from my jaw. I don't know who initiates the kiss. Somehow, we collide into each other, like fire and gasoline. I kiss her back with as much passion as I can muster, still choking back my sobs. We kiss our tears away. I kiss all of her scars. It takes us a few minutes to calm down, but eventually we separate, hands still clinging desperately to the other's in our laps.

Maybe it's the same for Johanna. Maybe it's worse for Johanna, because she's had something like this before that tore her apart. For every doubt I have, hers must fill all the stars in the galaxy, but there's always a beacon of hope in the sky. Somewhere, it's shining. Somewhere, a mockingjay's remedy is soothing a tortured soul.

And I want to ask Johanna what this means, what will happen next but I can't because I'm just absorbed in her. I know how all the reactions would go down. Finnick would probably cheer and Peeta would look mortified but I don't care. So I just pretend that Johanna and I aren't in Panem, where fire isn't calling us and where we can never get hurt.

But we don't talk about love, not in the way that Peeta and I did. We don't pretend that we're ever going to be okay. We can't predict what's going to happen between us, but the kiss says all of it.

 _I'm sorry. Forgive me._

 _Stay Alive._


End file.
